Donkey, excrete gold!

The title of my post came from an animated Chinese fable I rented from the library for the little man to watch. I didn't understand the moral of the story at all. Something must have been lost in the translation. Basically, some old farmer, who couldn't work anymore, was rewarded with a marvelous thing each day, by the stream he took a nap beside each afternoon. The objects all had special commands that would make them do wondrous things.

After getting his magical item, he would go to a wine stall in the market, give his object to the wine seller to hold for him and tell him not to say the magical phrase. Obviously, the wine seller would so totally say the magical phrase and switch the item for a matching, but magic-less item. Farmer dude would take it home to his wife, she'd get all stoked, and then it wouldn't work. He did it 4 times in a row, never learning from his mistake! In the end, the stream gave him a pumpkin that opened up and hurled sticks at the wine seller until he promised to give all the magic stuff back. What lesson is that? Be a dumbass and things will work out eventually?

In any case, I've got to hand it to the freaky creator of that fable for including the donkey, who with the command: "Donkey, excrete gold!", would do just that. He shit gold bars! They animated this event in full detail!

L dug it and wanted to watch it again, but I could only bear one viewing. He is into repetition. I've seen Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown about 76 billion times, since I got them for L in October. I must admit, I'm pleased with his taste for the Peanuts Gang. I approve.

I made him a very awesome advent calendar type thingy, of which I am quite proud. It's one of those things you make without really knowing how and then finish it and it kicks ass and you have no idea how you managed it or if you could ever do it again. I also styled him a matching Christmas stocking, because "I'm crafty, like ice is cold".



Each day has a little pocket for a wee gift like cheese crackers and mini tractors.

I wish I could accurately communicate how incredibly cute and hilarious L is, but words don't cut it. He's a wonder.



He's almost 23 months now. L talks like crazy with his hands flying all over the place, miming the ideas he can't quite cover with his vocabulary and adding sound effects to round out any misunderstandings. Asking for toast goes something like this: "Toast! Oh!" (Hand motion of pushing the toaster plunger handle thing down), "Kachunk!"(the sound of the toaster plunger handle thing being pushed down), and then a little celebratory dance. He's pretty much entertaining from waking to sleep, if not a little tiring sometimes. I don't have one one-hundredth of his energy. As soon as he comes in to get me up each morning, I get a hug and a kiss and then he takes my hand and says: "No sleep. Toys.", and off we go.

So Christmas is in two seconds. No snow. Looks like it could very possibly be a grey Christmas.

However, our tree looks great, T has 2 weeks off starting tonight and my gifts are done. I'm sick for the 85th time in 3 months, but you can't have everything. I wouldn't complain, even if you nicely asked me to.

Happy holidays and all that jazz. May your donkey excrete much gold.